During his epic quest to order a belt online, Trivago Guy encounters a distracting Internet Troll bent on souring the “Trivago Guy” meme.

In keeping true to Practicallyserious.com’s mission to become the Internet’s premiere source of quality Trivago Guy Fan Fiction, we present to you the long-awaited continuation of our epic Trivago Guy novella: “Trivago Guy Buys a Belt (Or Does He?)”

Trivago Guy sat down at his wobbly plastic computer desk and opened his ancient “America Online” Internet browser, version 1.33. Though he had every intention of heading directly to valuebelts.com to purchase a much-needed belt, he noticed right away that a little mailbox icon at the bottom of his homepage had taken on a delightful shade of orange, indicating a response to his latest posting at the Trivago Guy Fan Page chat forum. This was impossible to ignore, especially for a man with so advanced a case of ADD, and so, against his better judgement he diagonaled the cursor toward the icon.

He stopped himself just short of going click-click.

“No!” barked Trivago Guy as he slapped his hand onto his computer desk, causing an empty plastic bottle of Paxil, which had been perched for years atop an unopened box of expired Trojan condoms, to teeter and fall onto the dusty grey carpet. “I mustn’t let myself get distracted!” He knew damn well that if he didn’t strike while the iron was hot, if he didn’t purchase the belt ASAP, he would soon lose his nerve and remain beltless forevermore. Not very ideal. Time was of the essence! As sweat collected in the farmy croplines of his forehead and trailed down into his sad blue eyes, he clutched his mouse and tried to move the cursor that mailbox icon. .

Nope. It was no use! The glowing orange mailbox—and what lay inside it—was simply too tempting a diversion for Trivago Guy to ignore. Issuing a sigh of resignation, he moved the cursor back to the mailbox icon and with just one click opened up the chat forum. The window embiggened and he saw right away that his arch nemesis, Harry222, had indeed responded to his most recent comment. Trivago Guy’s pulse quickened and the hair on his cuff-rolled arms sizzled beneath the rolled-cuffs of his rumpled silver shirt.

Here’s the deal: Harry222, a random Internet troll, had been posting a lot of mean things about the fact that the “world famous Trivago Guy” didn’t wear a belt on the most recent Trivago television commercial. The troll seemed to really hate Trivago Guy for this simple fashion goof and wanted to whole wide world to know it. In response, poor Trivago Guy, hoping to nip this in the bud, had gone so far as to concoct a fake username (TrivagoRulez) with which he could anonymously stand up for himself on the chat forum. Either that, though Trivago Guy, or risk letting the trend build momentum and the other trolls follow Harry222’s example, uniting against him and souring the sacred Trivago Guy meme. It had turned into an epic battle for his very reputation online. The two had been trading blows for weeks.

But it had all been coming to a head as of late. To catch you up to speed, here’s a quick snippet of their last two-month’s-worth of cyberspace encounters, ending with the message Trivago Guy had just now received. All other commenters besides Harry222 and TrivagoRulez have been omitted to save time and space…

Harry222: Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why he doesn’t wear a belt.

TrivagoRulez: Well I understand where you’re coming from. I really do. It’s just that personally I think he looks cool without a belt.

That last response from Harry222 was the one Trivago Guy had just received in his America Online inbox. With a heavy stitch in his stomach, and at a total loss at to how to proceed, Trivago Guy sank further down into his uncomfortable plastic fold-out chair. He’d been hoping Harry222 would have just let it go at “I’m a 15 year old kid from Colorado, bro,” but the comment totally backfired, and now the Troll was actively trying to expose Trivago Guy’s sad charade. If word got out that Trivago Guy was masquerading as his own biggest fan on his own fan page, the entire Internet would have a field day. Sadness would ensue. Not very ideal.

Desperate to come up with the ideal response to Harry222’s last comment, Trivago Guy consciously abandoned his quest to buy a belt online, raising the likelihood that he would ultimately chicken out and never buy a belt at all. But there was nothing for it. This was a crux time and his sadness was too sad to permit rational thought. He sat there in silence, bullying his brain for the perfect comeback that would restore his online honor and make everything alright. Boy, he’d really painted himself into a corner this time! If you thought he looked sad on the commercial, you’d get a kick out of how sad he looked right there in front of his Gateway computer. He looked almost like that old WB cartoon character, Droopy the Dog. Basically, picture Droopy the Dog dressed up in Trivago Guy’s signature outfit and you’re just about there.